Linking.openURL a masked telephone number not working in iOS.

Expo SDK
1

Please provide the following:

  1. SDK Version: 44.0.5
  2. Platforms(Android/iOS/web/all): iOS
  3. Add the appropriate “Tag” based on what Expo library you have a question on.

It is not possible to mask the phone number using code *67 on iOS using Linking.openURL('tel':*67${phoneNo}) but this works perfectly for Android.

2

I assume you mean the following:

Linking.openURL(`tel:*67${phoneNo}`);

This looks like something that Apple disallows:

Phone Links:

To prevent users from maliciously redirecting phone calls or changing the behavior of a phone or account, the Phone app supports most, but not all, of the special characters in the tel scheme. Specifically, if a URL contains the * or # characters, the Phone app does not attempt to dial the corresponding phone number.

2 Likes
3

Thank you @wodin for the information. Is there any other way to implement the same feature in Expo?

4

I don’t know. There is nothing that is specific to Expo that would allow you to override Apple’s decision to block the * character. But if you can do it in React Native you should be able to do it in Expo. If you can do it in Objective-C or Swift you would at worst need to write some custom native code in order to use it from Expo.

So maybe look for a way to do it in React Native. If you do not find that, look for ways to do it in Objective-C or Swift. If, after finding those, you need help using them from your app, then post a new thread here with the details.

5

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